Hello Kano

Our blog on computing, cool stuff, the world, and wizards.

[kanocomputing]

Back to School

Live Hacking Make Art in Florida!

We’re so lucky at Kano HQ when we get the opportunity to speak to inspiring educators. We beamed into superstar teacher Michael Luetjen’s classroom and watched his students hack the Kano Make Art App to code their school logo, the Pine Crest Panthers. Michael's students are eager to solve problems, and he gives them Kano stickers when they complete coding challenges. They’re so excited to build, make and play with their Kanos. Thank you, Michael, for inspiring us all!

Find more cool Make Art creations here:

http://world.kano.me/shared/cccc

http://world.kano.me/shared/ggggggggggggggggg

http://world.kano.me/shared/spiderman-joking-spider

Creative puppetry in San Francisco!

Our aim at Kano is to champion in our community the creativity that inspires and drives us here at HQ. So we were thrilled when the incredible Sam Patterson sent us this video showcasing the impact of Kano in his learning spaces. Sam, along with his puppet Wokka, takes a novel approach to describing how his students’ focus on coding helps transform them into independent learners.

We’d love to hear from more of you in our educator community on the impact Kano is having with your learners.

Get in touch with us at [email protected] for your feedback and stories!

Kano teams up with the Institute of Imagination

Kano is excited to be located right in the heart of innovation and technology here in London. Our partner Institute of Imagination (IOI) exemplifies this spirit; they provide immersive experiences that harness creativity and empower young people to see their imagination as limitless.

Kano recently teamed up with IOI for their takeover of City Hall, the Mayor’s Office, in London. On their Kanos, kids used Scratch and Make Music to code an original song and dance. (LINK?) IOI's Director of Development, Jennifer Coleman expressed the alignment between her organization's vision and Kano's: “Kano not only helps kids understand how to build a computer but also hack it and show the world what’s in their head! Kano develops skills to take you anywhere.”

The Institute of Imagination is partnering with Kano to make sure that children from a young age are given the opportunity to explore, to build 21st century skills in creativity, problem solving, critical thinking, and collaboration, and importantly, to get excited about learning new things. Together, we're preparing young people for jobs that don't yet exist.

We’re excited to be a part of that.

Back to School Offers

Educators exclusive: For the first time, we're offering packs of our powerful LED lightboards that connect to your Raspberry Pis. Anyone can code amazing light displays using real Javascript, with simple Kano tutorials. The pack costs $300 for 10 lightboards––that's over 50% off of the original price! Email [email protected] for more information! 

As part of our Education Community, your purchase of over 5 Kano Complete kits will be 20% off until the end of October. Equip your after school coding club or makerspace, or stack your library cart. We’ll support your program design.

Use discount code: EDUBacktoSchool at checkout for your discount. 

Kano works on Connect Home Initiative

As part of the Obama administration’s ConnectHome initiative, Kano has teamed up with partners including EveryoneOn, GitHub, Best Buy, and Boys and Girls Club to provide digital literacy training and devices, along with internet access to over 275,000 low-come households and 28 communities in the US.  Watch this video to learn about the impact. 

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Raspberry Pi 3 – All you need to know, projects, specs and excitement!

Computing is getting cheaper, simpler, and more open. The Raspberry Pi has been at the forefront, and today, we're proud to reveal their latest invention together: the new Raspberry Pi 3 is here!

It's a $35 quad core computer-on-a-chip with WiFi and Bluetooth onboard.

Thanks to the incredible people over at Raspberry Pi Foundation and Farnell/Element 14, we've been playing around with Raspberry Pi 3 this week and wanted to share just how much of a step forward we think this board is.

So let’s take a look at what’s new...

64 bit 1.2GHz quad Cortex A53 processor, with 1GB or ram, 50% performance uplift over Pi 2   

VideoCore IV Graphics Processor at a rapid 400 mhz as opposed to the pi 2's 250 mhz

Onboard 802.11n Wireless LAN and Bluetooth

If you want to be one of the first people in the world to get a Raspberry Pi 3, then head over to the Kano website, where a limited quantity is waiting for you, inside our computer and coding Kit for all ages.

What can the Raspberry Pi 3 actually do? Here are some projects!

We’ve been playing around with the board for about a week and we’ve got a bunch of things we are excited about:

There’s now an optional experimental GL desktop driver, which means that all the graphics are rendered in the GPU instead in the CPU. Look how smoothly Quake runs on Raspberry Pi 3! Speed helps when you’re on survival mode.

Speaking of survival mode, we’ve been really excited to test out Minecraft and, without promising too much, it looks like… full Minecraft might be a possibility in the future! There’s redstone and animals and you can finally play on survival mode. Surely, the wizards at Microsoft and Mojang will have more to say on this, so make sure to keep your ears and eyes open! It would be an incredible achievement to get full Minecraft on a PC the cost of a few lattes.

Got ideas for what you want to build with Raspberry Pi 3? Let us know on Twitter or Facebook. With incredible props to Pi, Farnell/Element 14, Microsoft, Mojang, the Debian community and the open source software & hardware movement, the PC is changing. It’s getting more personal and free. So, don’t take technology for granted. Take a peek inside, join the creative computing movement and let’s build something incredible together.

Here are some Raspberry Pi 3 projects that you could try—and you’d truly be the first one in the world to do so!

If you are in the UK and would like to be one of the first 500 people in the world to get a Raspberry Pi 3, head over to the Kano website—while stocks last! If you’re based outside the UK then you can still pre-order over at kano.me.

[kanocomputing]

Take the Pledge

Today we’re thrilled to support Pledge 1% — a corporate philanthropy movement — as it announces its launch into the UK this week.

As an early member and one of the first European companies to join the Pledge, we encourage even more of our neighbours to help drive innovation in their communities around the globe — small and big, vibrant and talented, diverse and curious.

We have pledged 1% of our computer kits, 1% of equity and 1% of our time each year in an effort to give back. We see this as an invaluable opportunity for us and others to make the impact that powered our Kickstarter days. We’re excited about a world where anyone, anywhere can make and play with technology. This isn’t a “skill” for privileged nerds; it’s a new tool of expression.

Founded by Atlassian, the Entrepreneurs Foundation of Colorado, Rally and Salesforce.org, Pledge 1% empowers companies to donate 1% of product, 1% of equity and 1% of employee time to improve communities around the world.

To take the Pledge or to learn more about the organisation, visit our friends at http://pledge1percent.org/

[kanocomputing]

Still going, hours of code later

We’re kicking 2016 off while reflecting on our learnings from 2015, an incredibly exciting year for Team Kano. We ended the year with great momentum from the thousands of creators, coders, and storytellers who participated in Pixel Hack for CSEdWeek and Hour of Code activities, sharing their Minecraft characters and 8-bit art with the world. (For those of you who have not yet participated in Pixel Hack - pixelhack.kano.me will remain open for all who want to code through video game art history!)

We had the pleasure of running live events in New York and New Jersey, kicking off partnerships with 3 inspiring schools in the region––Girls Prep (part of the Public Prep Network of single-sex schools in NYC), DREAM Charter School in Harlem, and Harrington Park School in Harrington Park, New Jersey. Over 3 days, 66 students, 7 teachers, principals, superintendents, and executives from those schools helped put together Kano computers, before diving in and creating art with code and exploring Kano’s version of Minecraft. While each event had its own unique flair, we thought we’d share some of the trends.

Kids love debugging their own issues

Kano’s mission is to empower anyone, anywhere to make, learn, and play with technology. Our philosophy is to give kids the tools they need to really own their learning and creating.

Harrington Park School is a wonderful partner for Kano for this reason among many others––the teachers there really bring self-guided learning best practices to life. During the session, Dr. Adam Fried, the district’s innovative and supportive superintendent, a team of his teachers, and I spoke about learning from Sugata Mitra’s TED talks and his employment of “the method of the grandmother,” using encouragement to empower kids to overcome obstacles with perseverance (as a proud grandmother would). Of course great educators have a deep toolkit, and “the grandma method” is one of the tools they can pull from in the appropriate circumstances.

I witnessed a great example of the teacher empowering her student when a young learner had an issue with her keyboard. She raised her hand for help.

Student: “My keyboard doesn’t work.”

Teacher: “Why do you think that is?”

Student: “I don’t know.”

Teacher: “What could give us a clue?"

Student: “Well.. the light is blinking…"

Teacher: “Great observation. How can we find out what that means?”

Student: “The manual?” (Flips open manual, finds “keyboard,” in the index, and turns to the appropriate page) “Oh! The blinking light means that the keyboard needs to be repaired with the computer!”

The student then goes on to read how to repair the devices. She even turns to her classmate's computer to google one of the terms she didn’t understand.

There’s no getting stuck––only creativity in looking for the best path forward. The new

generation is incredibly resourceful in finding information, and we aim to support them in the quest!

Getting students to talk about the technology they intuit is powerful

At DREAM Charter School, all of the kids raised their hands in the beginning of our 2 hour session when we asked them if they’d used computers, cell phones, tablets, and more. And like many of us would, almost all put their hands down when asked whether they’d had a look inside of those devices. Over the course of the session, we found authentic learning opportunities to explore different types of monitor inputs, computer memory, operating systems, and more. DREAM Charter School, like Harrington Park and Girls Prep, does an incredible job encouraging learners to question the world around them, and it’s been inspiring to work in an environment full of curiosity and wonder.

At the end of the session, Joe Luesse, the Director of Evaluation at DREAM Charter School, led a terrific recap. We were blown away by the kids’ questions and the combination of their newly acquired information and skills with their existing knowledge and intuition. The new generation has such a strong framework for navigating their digital world, and we’re excited to give them tools to maximize their powers.

Our kids are engineers, artists, musicians, and more…today.

The young women of Girls Prep build webpages, write songs, and make video games. It’s clear that they are encouraged to use technology as a tool to explore their passions. The girls took every opportunity to share what they’d learned with their peers, to both teach and build on their creations.  

The girls interested in Minecraft gathered in a cluster to observe and emulate what they liked in their peers’ games; those who coded pictures showed one another the code behind their drawings and collaborated.  

I learned from Tiffany Liston, COO of Public Prep, about the network's approach to empowering its young women to be the next generation of female scientists, and the room was buzzing with not only activity but proactivity. These girls are empowered to solve all different types of problems with technology, and they believe in themselves as engineers, artists, and more, not only tomorrow––but today.

Each of the three schools––Girls Prep, DREAM Charter School, and Harrington Park––has its own unique philosophy, with shared themes around empowering young learners and integrating technology while fostering individual talent in the arts. We’re kicking off 2016 with wonderful creative energy from our inspiring CSEdWeek events, and I can’t wait to continue learning with our innovative new partners!

Joanna Bersin, Kano, Head of Education

Here at Kano, we inspire learners and educators to take a look inside, to change the rules and explore curiosities together. We’d love to share more on our global education programs and bring Kano to your classroom.  Email [email protected] for more info!

[kanocomputing]

#GivingTuesday

Starting today, 300 Kano Kits will be sent to vulnerable children. We started with Syrian refugee children in Lebanon, who received their first Kano Kits back in early November. 

The emotional and practical significance of this project is dear to our hearts. We started with the hope that every child will be able to make, learn and play with an accessible computer. Today we are one step closer to this goal, and hoping for more to come.

This project has been carried out in partnership with Sarah Brown, Theirworld and A World At School. who work hard for every child’s right to go to school and reach their potential. 

Find more information about the project here: http://gbc-education.org/power-upforschool-with-kano-on-givingtuesday/

[kanocomputing]

Make, learn, and play with our new Screen Kit

Did you know that, for every person on Earth, one square foot of LCD panel is milled and sold every year?

But what happens beneath the pixels? What if anyone, anywhere, could build their own affordable HD screen?

Computing should be as simple to create as it is to consume. Three years ago, this big dream started with a challenge from a small six-year-old, Micah – he asked us to create “a computer I can make myself, as simple and fun as LEGO, so no one teaches me.”

Today we complete the computer kit. Our worldwide tribe demanded a display. We had a choice: push them towards a pricy option – or work on a new piece of “anyone can make” magic, in time for the holidays.

We chose the latter, to demystify another layer of the tech we all take for granted. Today we’re shipping our build-your-own HD Screen Kit, for $129 / £109 / €129 through the holidays. 

You can get yours here. It’s the most affordable, portable, creative HD display in the world – and you build it yourself.

(Help us get the word out.)

Guided by a storybook, anyone, as young as six, can connect a driver board, LCD panel, programmable buttons, a base and stand, plug-and-play cables, stickers, velcro, and custom cards together – learning as you go. Read the book here.

Out pops a magnifying glass to look closely at each part and pixel. The build-your-own buttons let you to tweak alpha, gamma, and more, and learn what billions of liquid crystals can really do. To make it yours, we added stickers to peel and place on and around your Screen.

At the end, you’ve got a portable, playful display – your Kano Kit and Keyboard clip in the back, with room for spare cables or a battery pack. The 10.1” Gorilla Glass precision-moulded piece is the world’s most affordable all-in-one screen – it plugs into any HDMI-device, so it’s perfect for makers, photographers, artists, and creators of all stripes. Oh, and it’s viewable from two angles, or on your lap.

And soon, we’ll unveil an incredible offer around the Kano Complete, just for our first 100 buyers on Black Friday. More details on the door buster soon.

The Screen Kit isn’t all we’ve been up to this year. Our new Powerup Kit lets you transform any Raspberry Pi 1 into a lightshow, and comes with a 6x faster Raspberry Pi 2, and a special Make Light creative coding app. It’s $89 / £69, and lets you make arcade games, alarm clocks, status lights, and more.

We’ve also souped up the Kano Kit. You’ll get an open, playful computer kit that teaches you as you go – along with hundreds more creative coding challenges. We’ve powered up our PC with a programmable orb of dazzling LEDs. You can link them to music and data, following simple, storybook steps.

You’ve helped us get so far, in less time than it takes to grow a poplar. You helped our first computer and coding kit explode on Kickstarter, and made it one of the most crowdfunded learning inventions ever – with the mojo of Steve Wozniak, Yancey Strickler, and backers in 86 countries. A year later, over 50,000 have built their first computer, and coded artworks, games, songs, servers, radios, and more. In our online World, kids of all ages have shared over 9 million lines of creative code, a carnival of the computer arts.

Once again, for the Screen Kit, we teamed up on our industrial design with MAP, an incredible and noble crew of makers and artists who we’ve partnered with since the beginning. Here’s a taste of the iteration...

Kano turns learning to code into a game with drag and drop physical pieces and digital blocks, that let you remix real devices, apps and games you love – like Minecraft, Whatsapp, Pong, and more. We’re growing into a complete creative computing system. Kids in Sierra Leone have built radio stations with Kano, in Oklahoma, time-lapse cameras, in Kosovo, solar arrays, and around the world, playful open-source consoles that let you look inside a computer’s brain – rather than just use it.

We’re awed by these creator stories, and now with the release of Screen Kit, we look forward to more mainstream making as our community grows. Thanks for being with us. 

GET A KANO KIT: kano.me

GET A SCREEN KIT or a DISCOUNT BUNDLE: kano.me/screen

FUN FACT: Did you know that, before screens, computers talked to each other with punchcards – and now, they do it by sending millions of numbers, sixty times a second, down a special coiled cable?

WATCH THIS: How to make a computer

MORE ASSETS AND STORIES: Kano press pack

WHAT’S INSIDE – SCREEN KIT

10.1” LCD screen, 1280 x 800, 720p (scales to 1080p), 150 PP, $129 through the holidays

The Screen Book, a story with simple steps so anyone can build and understand their own powerful display

Easy-snap base plates

Magnifying glass

Driver board

Button board

Wafer cable

HDMI Cable

Mini-USB Y-splitter cable (power)

Works with the Kano Kit or any HDMI-compatible device

WHAT’S INSIDE – KANO COMPUTER KIT

A computer and coding kit for all ages, powered by Raspberry Pi 2, -          

Two illustrated storybooks: “Make a computer” and “Code powers”

Raspberry Pi 2

Build-your-own speaker, case-mounted and powered by GPIO

Flat cables, colour coded for easy use

Stickers

Customizable case slide cards for top and bottom of case

Modular side slotting case with clamshell clip

Nano Wi-Fi dongle with seamless auto-configuration

8GB SDHC Class 10 memory card with Kano OS

New wireless keyboard with multi-touch trackpad

Ultra high-quality, region-customizable USB power supply

[kanocomputing]

How to make a screen anyone can make

 (A sneak peek into building the screen that sneakily lets you peek inside)

Step 1: Make important decisions

FLEXIBLE: So that Kano can be used in different rooms.

OPEN: So that we stay true to our shared mission and aesthetic.

HD: So that we offer a high quality experience with a highly simple tool.

Step 2: Make first doodles

Be it a meeting break, or time for tea and cake, sometimes even the biggest projects can be born from a chat, a catch-up, or simple small talk in the office kitchen. This is how designing The Screen Kit started:

Step 3: Make serious doodles

We brought in the people that gave life to your transparent Kano case, your sleek, shiny box and the (pretty iconic) orange keyboard.   Jacky, from MAP, tells you a little bit more about your new screen:

Step 4: Make experimental prototypes

Step 5: Make manufacturing prototype

We leave you with the photos that arrived today from China! This is by no means the final display. There's a lot more involved in the design of a screen... Till next time!

Did you miss the previous Screen Kit update? You can find it here: All Aboard?

[kanocomputing]

All aboard?

"For a good idea to become real, there has to be a moment between mania and magic..."

Team Kano, Kickstarter Update #23

Back in 2014, bright-eyed and filled with pride, we delivered the Kano Kit to you; and now it’s time to come aboard the product journey for The Screen Kit.

How are we producing a Screen anyone can make? 

Great ideas have humble beginnings, sparked from grand ideas. Throw into the recipe meticulous planning, and the right mix of people and you’re set off on a path to designing, making and shipping a product countless Kano supporters have asked for. But, how does this all come together?

Decision to produce – the big ol’ WHY.

A first, rough design with all the desired components.

Working out whether these components are manufacturable.

Re-working on a realistic design.

Setting up a deadline.

Manufacturing prototypes for testing.

Kitting the final product

Delivery a.k.a. get ready for a makers' party!

To those who pre-ordered, you made this possible for us and for everyone. So, welcome to this journey and we hope you enjoy the process as much as we do!

Why The Screen Kit? 

We made a 30-second whiteboard animation of whys and whens and whatnots:

Based on the feedback we received, we wanted a screen that is:

PORTABLE: So that Kano can travel anywhere and across all rooms.

OPEN: So that we stay true to our shared mission and aesthetic.

HD: So that we offer a high quality experience with a highly simple tool.

(But more on that next time.)

Some Screen Science

While we wait, why not share some screen science with the budding inventors in your home? This 50-second video will teach them what pixels mean!

[kanocomputing]

Families that make together, stay together

When making, creating and playing with Kano becomes a family affair, the whole atmosphere in the office goes up to a different level. If we could describe the feeling, it would involve unicorns getting painted by rainbows, while all the stars align and every single shade of orange in the world turns into the TRUE Kano orange (alas!).

Dad-daughter time

Carlo first got in touch with us when he and his daughters, Emilia and Viktoria, made a stop motion video of a flower blooming with a camera and a Kano. Watch the beautiful process for yourself!

That’s not where their story ends, though. Carlo sent us a note with the family’s favorite techie and makey activities, so read on!

The story begins

“We started with the Raspberry Pi and Kano last Xmas. Like many parents, I was looking for a tool to make my two 8-year-old daughters, Emilia and Viktoria, familiar with the basics of computing and coding. Both have tablets (iPad and Android) and they use them intuitively for playing, watching their favourite shows and doing some Wikipedia research for school.  

However, I did not like the “black box” character of these machines. So, I started to get interested in the Pi and its DIY personality. When I found out about Kano, I knew: this is what I need for my little ones to get a look behind the scene!

So they got their Pi (B+) and Kano for Xmas and it was amazing to see what a difference it makes to assemble your own computer compared to switching on a black box! We built our own LEGO case for the Pi, including a support for the PiCamera. Emilia fell in love with Sonic Pi, but still is too shy to publish her music on Kano World. Viktoria is very much into Terminal Quest: I guess she will end up as a coding detective!

Camera-ready

Since it is important to me that they understand how computers can be a tool to discover their surroundings, we started with two camera projects: we made a short stop motion movie of a pirate ship crew and a two week time lapse movie of nesting birds (which unfortunately failed because no birds wanted to move into our new nesting box; we hope for next spring!).

Transforming the Lunchbox

Next was a portable Pi (our first Pi 2), which we decided should be housed in a lunchbox, so the Lunchbox Pi was born, beautifully decorated by Emilia and Viktoria with Kano stickers (thanks Ricardo for shipping them out to us!). The Lunchbox Pi now serves as web radio which the girls use for listening to their favorite podcasts.

School CAN be fun

During the entire school year projects and papers about all sorts of things - from white cats to the rain forest - were a big issue in class. It was only last weekend that Emilia decided that she wants to do her next presentation (about the Tasmanian Devil!) with her Kano and with LibreOffice.

So, step by step, Kano is becoming their computer and a tool for a lot of things from making music with code to creative school projects.”

Thanks, Carlo! You’re awesome.

Do you have a Kano story you’d like to share with us? You can do it here: I am awesome and I want the world to hear it.

[kanocomputing]

#tbt

The first time we shipped Kano blocks and Kano OS – before the Kano kits were even a reality! Not much has changed since then if you exclude the fact that now over 40,000 kids have received their Kano superpowers, the family has grown to over 30 members and we have launched Kano OS 2.0. So, technically, a lot has changed. (And we’ve moved.) 

[kanocomputing]

Hacked by my grandson

Gear up and fasten your imaginary seat belts, for today we are taking you all the way to Indiana, where Greyson and his grandma are making with their Kano. 

“What?! A grandson called Greyson and his grandma making code?!”, you might wonder. Not to gloat or guilt-trip... but read on how these two turned from gamers into experts! 

Greyson, hacker, 6 years old

The calm of the night was interrupted by what seemed to be a glitch in an otherwise smooth system. A window popped up on grandma’s screen; a window she had never seen before and a window with an interesting view at that.

It read: “Cyber police

Good guy has hacked you

You are not gonna get away with this

Good guy Greyson hacked you”

Grandma didn’t know what to do. Could it be..? “Greyson is only 6 years old”, she thought to herself. How could he do that? 

We found Greyson and asked him how he got to that stage of hacking skills. Turns out, he was just playing and – with a curious mind – he explored all the dark corners of his very own computer.

Interview with Good Guy Greyson

What do you like doing with your Kano?

I program apps. I use it for paint, draw objects and made up objects and sometimes wallpaper.

What’s the best thing about Kano? 

That I was able to set it up. It was binary, like thinking. 

How has Kano helped you?

It help me to help program apps and I got better and better at it. 

Is there something you made with your Kano that you really enjoyed or remember?

I remember when I set it up and programmed all of the apps. I have opened and played with Pong, Snake, Make Art, Minecraft, and Sonic Pi.  

When do you use Kano?

In the evenings, before going to bed.

The first person (ever) to be proud they got hacked said...

Before you had Kano what did you, and Greyson, do at these times? Is Kano replacing another type of screen time or something else?

We played with the iPad and iPhone.

Have you noticed any differences in Greyson since he started using Kano? 

He now loves to watch Youtube videos regarding anything to do with computers. He also knows ‘do’ commands, and has a better understanding of computers – old and new.

Anything else you want to share? 

Greyson now loves anything to do with computers, and has self taught himself on these topics.

Do you have a Kano story you’d like to share with us? You can do it here: I am awesome and I want the world to hear it. 

[futurescope]

Self-healing machines? Yes, you read that right

Even the researchers involved in the project describe it as “verging on science fiction”. A team of British scientists has produced aircraft wings that can fix themselves after being damaged, suggesting that self-healing technology will soon become commonplace.

[kanocomputing]

This is so cool. 

Also, we just started preparing for the robot takeover. 

[kanocomputing]

A Kano Moment

The Kano journey is only beginning   

04 May 2015

A note by our co-founder, Yonatan Raz-Fridman, shared with the team on the day that our fundraising and re-launch were announced.

In November 2012, Saul, Alex and I set the goal of a computer anyone can make, anywhere, inspired by the challenge from the 6-year old Micah. It was an idea a lot of people thought was irrelevant in an era where computing devices are in abundance and screens are everywhere, but we’ve decided to pursue this goal as we believed the world needs a new type of computer company - one that will empower the rising billion, the next generation of creators.

The past 30 months have been a roller-coaster. Everything moved fast, with a thrill that required us to persevere, be ready for the unknown and execute fiercely. In between my flights from Tel-Aviv to London, with Alex completing his masters in Cambridge, many hours and weekends of guidance and mentorship from Saul, and with the help of a talented Swedish designer name Tommy, we’ve made, sold and shipped 200 units of the Alpha version, straight from 8 Parkhill Road in London.

Over Ramen soup and after extensive search, in June 2013 we’ve recruited our first employee, Alejandro, who grew into the Head of Software role, helping us build the tech team which was instrumental in delivering the Kano OS. But before Kano OS came to life, we’ve launched the Kano Computer Kit on Kickstarter in what became one of the most successful Kickstarter campaigns of all times, with an incredible teamwork, in-and-out of the building, reaching the hearts and minds of nearly 14,000 people from 86 countries.

And then, 18 months after shipping the Alpha version, in October 2014, we’ve shipped. Our first production ever recorded the number 18,000 - a massive first production of a first product we’ve ever released on large scale, by a team that have built their first ever product - we earned a WOW. It was the teamwork, the precision and the commitment that led us to achieve our 2014 objective: WE SHIP, IT WORKS, WOW.

Yes, we had a good start, and all of you should be proud of your exceptional execution and true commitment. Today though, I am thinking much more about Kano’s future. Over the next 10 years computing will be more personal than it ever was. We live in an era of accessibility where technology is everywhere, connectivity is almost ubiquitous and billions are eager to be relevant in the ever changing workforce landscape of the 21st century.

We, as Team Kano, can help. By building a new type of computer company, we help people to make a computer, learn to code and create the future - for themselves, their families and their communities - all over the world. Micah, Kelvin and Caine showed us how powerful their dreams can be, but now we have the beginning of a Kano Generation with little Ms. Innes, Scarlett & Holly, and empowering young African innovators in Kenya  

Today marks the beginning of a new era for Kano. Together with launching the New Kano kit, we are also announcing a new round of funding - $15 million. What made this financing round so special is how we worked together, as a team, to accomplish something incredible. We’ve all played part regardless of what we’ve done on a day-to-day basis, because that’s the power of a team. We help each other, we support one another, and we keep the commitment to our mission. That is why we’ve been successful in bringing on board spectacular investors, and that’s what will help us build a meaningful global business.  

Leading the round is Jim Breyer, one of the world’s leading investors who has invested and helped grow iconic companies like Dell, Facebook and Etsy, among others. This is what Jim Breyer has to say:

“Kano is enabling and empowering the next generation of innovators with a truly delightful educational product that makes basic computing skills accessible for all. The global opportunity for Kano, and the opportunity to make a meaningful difference in the lives of young people around the world, is enormous. I am proud to support Kano at this exciting time in the company’s development”. The process of locking down Jim started with an introduction by Jonathan Klein who was also instrumental in helping us close Jim with the back-stage guidance of Saul and others.    

Also participating are Collaborative Fund and Jim O'Neill, a British economist who coined the term “BRIC”. But that’s not all.

With a tribute to our crowdfunding heritage, we are also raising up to $500,000 from our community through Quire, the equity crowdfunding platform from NYC. We will use the Quire platform to engage with our community and investors by previewing new features, soliciting feedback, and sharing updates. We also set aside a “Golden Share” amounting to 1% of the company’s undiluted equity for Kano Academy, our not-for-profit initiative for supporting making and creativity worldwide.

The spectacular work you’ve all been doing has led us to where we are, and we salute you. Together with the new funding, Kano is now better positioned to extend the product platform; scale the business in the US, UK, and enter new markets; build out the Kano brand and Academy; and continue to grow our multinational team. Real accessibility of technology to the majority of the world is still out of reach, and this is exactly our opportunity - to make “making” with technology accessible to anyone, anywhere, and making that experience fun like Lego.

Together, we have accomplished a lot in less than 30 months - that’s a very a short time. Yet with all respect to our past, which we should definitely remember and learn from, what matters the most is what happens from now. What matters the most is what we do next. The journey of building a new type of computer company is long, but as you’ve seen so far, it’s pretty damn exciting. Thank you for being part of this journey, and here’s to the next 30 months, and beyond.

Yonatan

[futurescope]

Trend Shia delivers the most intense tech startup speech of all-time

Future/Trend/Startup-vaganza in a nutshell.

[kanocomputing]

This is literally us in the office.

[beeslikehoney]

[kanocomputing]

Practice makes perfect!

[kanocomputing]

MoMA goes Kano

From London to NYC – the orange keyboard and the colourful bits boarded a flight and are arriving today! 

Workshop 

Join us this Saturday (5/16) from 12-1pm or from 1:30-2:30pm and learn how to code mountains in Minecraft, powerups in Pong, and delve into the dark dungeons of Terminal Quest! 

RSVP here or email [email protected]

Who will be there? 

Our cofounder, Yonatan, and the women that make sure your kit gets to your home, Becca and Emily. Talk to them about Kano, cosplay or roller skates – and, of course, you.

And finally...

Kano is on display at the MoMA store. A tiny computer but a big design! 

Photo credit goes to @primo_io, thanks for sharing it with us!

[kanocomputing]

The story of Lila

Lila is 7 and to her grandparents she’s a coding super-hero! Her Dad, Anthony, tells us about how they like to play Kano together before bed to make stuff and get homework help.

Bedtime is a pretty busy time in our house, just like everyone else’s. With the Kano, Lila and I have managed to carve out some special time, even if it’s just 30 minutes to play Minecraft together, or create stuff with code.  

Generally Lila is playing and I’m watching what she’s doing and helping her when she has questions or needs a hand. We treat the Kano as her computer. Homework comes first but sometimes we might use Chrome on the Kano to research stuff on Wikipedia before we start playing. We’ve given Kano a permanent home on the TV stand so we don’t need to waste precious time setting it up every night; we can just jump on and start playing immediately.  

Lila has grown up with computers, iPads and iPhones, and like all kids these days she just naturally knows how to use them. We saw Kano as a more constructive type of screen time, and also a way for Lila to understand more about computers and coding from an early age so she doesn’t see it as difficult or complex. Lila took to the Kano, and to coding, really naturally. Now she just takes it in her stride.  

There’s this perception that coding is complex but actually for Lila it's a very natural interaction, she swaps between playing with Minecraft to changing something in Make Minecraft with code, and back. There’s nothing extraordinary about that to her, she’s come to expect that she has control over computers and that it’s easy and natural to change things.

Actually, what’s really amusing is watching her grandparents as she’s coding. To them computers are complex and foreign, and they can’t quite believe that their seven year old granddaughter is telling a computer to change the shape and colour of a balloon and that it’s happening in front of their eyes.

Lila loves Lego and building things, and with Kano it’s just another way of making stuff but this time it’s with code blocks instead of Lego bricks.  At the minute she’s busy building herself a palace in Minecraft. She found Minecraft a little difficult to begin with but she was so proud of herself when she worked it out, and now she’s a natural.  

As a father of two young girls I’m passionate about showing my daughters that they can do anything they put their mind to. Often with products aimed at kids there’s a real emphasis on pink or blue, and that’s something that I hate with a passion. This may be my perception as a dad, but I think girls are far more patronised by toy makers than boys are. If Lila gets a Lego Friends toy then I’ll buy her a Lego City set to balance things out. I recently gave her an Action Man with a working parachute for her to chuck out of windows.  

I love that Kano is completely gender neutral (I only recently twigged that was why it’s orange), and that it’s showing Lila that she can make stuff and control computers with code.  

Do you have an interesting Kano story too? Share it with us and be in with a chance of winning a Powerup kit and becoming a face of Kano.